Welcome Greg. Not sure if one guide giving a report on another guides website is cool, But anyways. I to have been surprised at lack of small fish, Meaning less then about 10 to 12 inchers, there just simply are not many around. Not much insect activity for these warm days, Its the mudshails that are taking up the native insects enviroment, I recently noticed that some good spots are not producing like they did in the past, I also have noticed massive mudsnail invasion in these same spots.

I fished the Creek pretty hard on Sunday. I methodically covered almost all of the water (even the dead slow water) from Access 3 to just up above Access 2, then fished the skinny water at Access 5 island late in the evening. Not a single fish caught or a strike for that matter. I saw one fish rise in 8 hours. Like the others posting I noticed very little insect activity and found my way into some knee deep silt as I was wading out near Access 2. I have never seen silt that deep at Putah. I also noticed areas that had clean gravel and boulders in Nov/Dec were layered in silt. I wonder if such heavy silt could have choked out the insect life.

Like a lot of you, I've been fishing Putah for a long time.  I've seen the creek cycle in that time, and I have to say, lately it's been as slow for me as ever - with very few small fish caught.  Of course, I'm only fishing a few hours at a time, and mostly afternoons and evenings... as you all know the fishing can vary dramatically between morning and evening.

Having said that, the good news is that at the end of the summer, when I was looking for a house in Fairfield, I was catching 20-30 little ones a night (that's just a few hours) and several 15-18 inch fish on dries.

There were lots of insects too - but typically they were caddis, mayflies and some little yellow stones (and of course mosquitos and midges).  It's funny about the snails.  They are much less prevalent in some areas (like access 5) and much more prevalent in other areas (like where captain said he saw a lot of them).

One definite difference between this and last year is the clarity of the water.  It hasn't rained in a while and the water at access 5 was soupy green.   Tons of algae, and NO insects or fish to speak of.  Greg may be on to something - but I did catch tons of little ones at the end of the summer.

Bono may have some thoughts on this.

JL

-- Edited by JL at 21:50, 2008-03-11

I dont think Greg is gonna mind me posting a report on here since we know each other pretty well and refer people back and forth.
Yes that was me guiding the lady and the guy near cold creek.  I could see a couple fish in there but couldnt get them to eat.  I think the water was just a little slow and the anglers were just learning and couldnt get the perfect drift.  Were you the kid and the dad that was practicing casting on the side right above us?

I dont know what that creek is called, But as John said It just spews massive mud into the creek when it rains hard.

Anyone with the name Greg or "fish whisperer" is always welcome to post on this site as long as he will take me to dinner at the Buck horn restraunt inWinters and not misteriosly forget his wallet.I am going to bring up the siltation issue near the resort at our next group meeting which is this Sat,maybe we can address the problem.